PLoS ONE
February 10, 2023
Lucia Melloni, Liad Mudrik, Michael Pitts et al.
106 citations
An adversarial collaboration between proponents of Global Neuronal Workspace and Integrated Information Theory devised and preregistered two experiments that test contrasting predictions about the location and timing of correlates of visual consciousness. Six theory-impartial laboratories will follow the study protocol using fMRI, M-EEG, and intracranial EEG, with built-in replications between labs and within datasets. The project aims to provide decisive evidence for or against the two theories and clarify the neural footprints of conscious visual perception, while modeling large-scale, collaborative, and open science practice.
Nature
June 1, 2025
Oscar Ferrante, Urszula Gorska-Klimowska, Simon Henin et al.
94 citations
Different theories explain how subjective experience arises from brain activity. An open science adversarial collaboration directly juxtaposed integrated information theory (IIT) and global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT). Human participants (n = 256) viewed suprathreshold stimuli for variable durations while neural activity was measured with fMRI, MEG, and intracranial EEG. Information about conscious content was found in visual, ventrotemporal, and inferior frontal cortex, with sustained responses in occipital and lateral temporal cortex reflecting stimulus duration, and content-specific synchronization between frontal and early visual areas. These results align with some predictions of IIT and GNWT but substantially challenge key tenets of both theories, including a lack of sustained posterior cortex synchronization for IIT and a lack of ignition at stimulus offset and limited prefrontal representation for GNWT.
Cell reports
December 24, 2024
Lim-Anna Sieu, Shobhit Singla, Jiayang Liu et al.
8 citations
Focal temporal lobe seizures in humans often cause loss of consciousness accompanied by cortical slow waves similar to deep sleep. Previous rat studies under anesthesia suggested that reduced subcortical arousal depresses cortical function, but could not link conscious behavior to physiology. In an awake mouse model, electrically induced hippocampal seizures impaired behavioral responses to sounds, triggered cortical slow waves, and reduced mean high-frequency cortical activity. Behavioral responses depended on cortical acetylcholine release at two timescales: slow state-related decreases correlated with overall impairment, while fast phasic release corresponded to variable spared or impaired responses per stimulus. These results establish a strong link between decreased cortical arousal and impaired consciousness during focal seizures.
NeuroImage
May 15, 2025
Aya Khalaf, Erick Lopez, Jian Li et al.
6 citations
Subcortical arousal systems help control sustained changes in attention and conscious awareness, and recent studies suggest they also influence short-term dynamic modulation of visual attention, but their role across sensory modalities is unclear. Analyzing fMRI data from 1561 participants performing visual, auditory, tactile, and taste perception tasks, a shared circuit of subcortical arousal systems was identified. This circuit shows early transient increases in activity in the midbrain reticular formation and central thalamus across all sensory modalities, with less consistent increases in the pons, hypothalamus, basal forebrain, and basal ganglia. Identifying these networks is critical for understanding normal attention and consciousness and may aid subcortical targeting for therapeutic neuromodulation.
eLife
January 13, 2026
François Stockart, Alexis Robin, Hal Blumenfeld et al.
Identifying neural correlates of perceptual consciousness (NCC) remains difficult because most studies use non-invasive brain measures that lack the spatial or temporal precision to separate consciousness from other cognitive processes. Low sensitivity also makes null findings hard to interpret. This review argues that human intracranial recordings—which offer high spatiotemporal resolution, better signal sensitivity, and broad brain coverage—can advance the search for NCCs. It examines studies at the single-neuron and population level, evaluates their implications for debates between cognitive and sensory theories of consciousness, and discusses current limitations and future directions using emerging technologies and experimental paradigms.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology
October 7, 2025
Stefan Sumsky, Rory Ashmeade, Jiayang Liu et al.
preprint
Absence seizures cause sudden lapses in consciousness accompanied by spike-wave discharges, but how they impair sensory processing is unclear. In a rat model of absence epilepsy, behavioral performance on an auditory task collapsed during seizures, dropping from about 88% correct to less than 1%. However, electrical responses in the primary auditory cortex remained normal. Instead, a novel oscillatory signal in the anterior insular cortex was robust in healthy controls, reduced in epileptic rats between seizures, and nearly absent during seizures. This signal's reduction differed from that seen in satiated, unmotivated states, where waveform structure was preserved. The anterior insula appears to be a critical hub for gating auditory conscious awareness during seizures, offering a potential biomarker and intervention target.
PNAS nexus
July 1, 2026
David S Jin, Oumayma Agdali, Taruna Yadav et al.
Awareness of action (AoA)—the conscious awareness of one's own actions—is crucial for daily life, yet its neural basis is poorly understood. By developing a game where participants repeatedly made nearly identical moves while distracted, then reported awareness or unawareness of those moves, the authors compared neural activity between aware and unaware actions. On short timescales, aware actions showed larger neurophysiological signals both before and after movement, including volitional and perceptual event-related potentials, frontal midline theta, alpha/beta desynchronization, and increased blink rates. On longer timescales, a novel positive event-related potential preceded only unaware moves, and behavioral and pupillometric evidence indicated decreased attention and arousal concurrent with AoA loss. Three synergistic neural mechanisms were identified: long-term increases in arousal/attentional state, increased motor volitional signals, and increased sensory perceptual signals.
Scientific data
May 7, 2026
Aya Khalaf, David Richter, Yamil Vidal et al.
An adversarial collaboration between proponents of the Global Neuronal Workspace theory and the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness produced a functional magnetic resonance imaging dataset from 118 participants. Participants viewed faces, objects, letters, and false fonts presented at three orientations and three durations (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 seconds) while identifying infrequent targets. Two categories were task-relevant and two were task-irrelevant in each block. The simple design makes the data broadly reusable for testing predictions from other theories of consciousness and for examining visual processing. Anonymized data, quality reports, demographics, behavioral performance, and eye-tracking data are publicly accessible.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 23, 2023
Oscar Ferrante, Urszula Gorska-Klimowska, Simon Henin et al.
preprint
An open science adversarial collaboration directly juxtaposed Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) by investigating neural correlates of visual experience. 256 human subjects viewed suprathreshold stimuli for variable durations while neural activity was measured with fMRI, MEG, and ECoG. Information about conscious content was found in visual, ventro-temporal, and inferior frontal cortex, with sustained responses in occipital and lateral temporal cortex reflecting stimulus duration, and content-specific synchronization between frontal and early visual areas.